


Not All Losers Wear Capes

by HowToFailAtWriting



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Action, Action & Romance, Action/Adventure, Angst and Feels, Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Anxiety Disorder, Attempted Murder, Awkward Romance, BAMF Michelle Jones, BIG OOF, Bonding, Civil War Team Iron Man, Crime Fighting, Crimes & Criminals, Criminal Masterminds, Developing Friendships, Drama & Romance, Eventual Romance, F/M, Feels, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Gang Violence, Gangs, High School, Hurt Peter Parker, Male-Female Friendship, Minor Original Character(s), Murder, OTP Feels, Organized Crime, Original Character(s), Peter Parker Feels, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Post-Spider-Man: Homecoming, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Precious Peter Parker, Protective Tony Stark, Romance, Romantic Friendship, Slow Burn, Stan Lee Cameo, Superheroes, Teen Romance, Tony Feels, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, oof, this is gonna be a hella slow burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-29
Updated: 2018-04-29
Packaged: 2019-04-29 17:13:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14477424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HowToFailAtWriting/pseuds/HowToFailAtWriting
Summary: It’s been six weeks since he’s taken down The Vulture. Six weeks since Liz left school, six weeks since all the craziness started.And it’s not over yet.Now a new threat looms over Queens as a new villain rises. This one is part of a mysterious organization hell-bent on taking down Tony Stark. Peter is left to juggle his schoolwork, his crime-fighting duties and something new; romance.





	Not All Losers Wear Capes

Oh god. Oh god, oh god oh god oh god oh god.

Blood gushed out of the wound, spilling out of the red spandex, spilling out of his hands, spilling onto the cold concrete floor. The world went still. The pain was like nothing he had ever felt before. He clung on to his consciousness with fervent desperation, refusing to let go.

“Hey, hey, are you okay?” Michelle touched his shoulder uncertainly. Black spots danced around the edge of his vision. His heart pounds heavily in his ears, _thump, thump, thump,_ as he shakily stands up, pushing himself off the alley floor with Michelle for support. Why did it hurt so much?

Peter sprayed some web fluid over the bullet hole. He gritted his teeth as it hissed and stung at him in vengeance. His webs would have to hold for now. God, it felt a thousand times worse than any pain he’d ever been through.

“Alright so you got shot in the kneecap... ouch. Yeah that’s not a good place to get shot in.” Her words were calm and collected, but her quivering voice betrayed her. Michelle helps steady him, with considerable effort.

Peter wanted to say something really smart, like “Well thanks, I’ll keep that in mind for the future” but in the moment, all his scrambled brain could think up was “Uhhh thanks” and a grunt.

“So... I’m assuming you don’t want me to call an ambulance or anything?” Peter nodded.

The two of them slowly made their way out of the dark alley. It was a lonely and deathly quiet street, a part of Queens he was unfamiliar with.

Michelle breaks the silence. “So... do you have anyone who can help?”

Peter tried to think clearly. Aunt May would be a dead giveaway to his real identity. Ned would be entirely useless in this scenario. But who else could help?

He spotted a gleaming tower, massive and beaming with light, rising above all other buildings in the distance. And Peter knew who to look for.

“Tony Stark.”

—

And that was how Peter found himself outside the new Stark Tower at near midnight, clinging on to a girl he barely knew with a bad limp.

“Hey, uh, I can just walk in by myself here. You can go home now.” Peter said awkwardly. He made a feeble attempt to remove his arm from her shoulder, but almost ended up collapsing onto the ground.

It was kind of embarrassing, really. A superhero who needed help from a normal civilian? And what made it even more embarrassing was that he knew her. He tried not to dwell too much on this fact.

But it was just so bizarre. Waiting outside Iron Man’s home with his schoolmate-and-sort-of-friend. He had never really thought about what Michelle did outside of school, or that she really did have a life outside school.

“Yeah, right. And miss the chance to see Tony Stark’s new mansion?” Michelle almost seemed excited. “Anyway you got shot in the kneecap, I’m pretty sure you can’t walk by yourself.”

“It’s not far from here, I think I can walk a couple of steps.” Peter tried to reassure himself that it wasn’t really that far. He should leave her behind now anyway, while he still had the chance. The longer she hung around, the more likely it was she discovered his true identity.

“Well if you say so.” Michelle smirked. She watched him slowly remove his arm from around her neck, stumble a bit, hobble two steps towards the tower and face-plant into the dirt. “Sure you don’t need any help?”

“Alright, fine, you can come too.”

Peter pressed the new intercom at the new gate. Buzz. Tony’s voice crackles through the speaker. “Who’s there?” AC/DC could be heard in the background.

“Hey, Mr St...uh, Tony. It’s Spider-Man.”

The gate clicked open. The two of them were greeted by cool air and the calming sound of trickling water. In the center of the lobby sat a very expensive, intricately sculpted marble water fountain that looked like it cost more than Queens itself. Michelle was... a little more than just amazed. Not that he could blame her. After all, the fountain was only a small part of the lobby. Tapestries and paintings rested on the wall, most notably Vincent Van Gogh’s _The Starry Night_. Till this day, he still hadn’t figured out whether it was a replica or the real deal. Peter ended up having to tug a distracted Michelle into the elevator.

The elevator doors ‘dinged’ open. They had arrived at the top floor. Immediately, the two of them were greeted by the smell of something burning.

Michelle looked around, impressed. “Wow, this place is a dump.”

She wasn’t wrong. The floor was buried under newspapers and bits of gear. A far cry from the usual state of the tower. The TV was on, loudly blaring out information on a recent murder. Newspapers flew across the room, one smacking him in the face as it passed by.

With Michelle’s support, he limped his way over to where Tony was, on the couch pouring himself a drink. He’s not even watching where he’s pouring it, too preoccupied by a newspaper in front of him.

“You live here?” Her face is one of complete incredulity, and disgust.

“I know.” He raises the glass to them, oblivious to the fact it wasn’t a compliment. “Want one?”

It was only then that Tony looked up from his newspaper, and saw Peter’s leg. His face went from calm to very, very panicked in an instant.

Tony set the bottle onto the floor and rushed over to help him. Peter winced at the hot spike of pain going through his leg as he was heaved over Tony’s shoulder. “What the hell happened to you?”

Michelle filled him in on the events of the night, as the three rushed down a fancy hallway somewhere in the massive tower. She rushed through the details of everything, with how he had saw her cornered by two men, jumped in and helped, and stupidly got shot. As she retold her account of the night, Tony dashed by hundreds of mahogany-and-gold doors, until he reached one with a **‘TOP SECRET’** sign above it. He kicked the door in.

The lights are switched on, and Peter has a hard time believing his eyes. Four cowboys, one looking suspiciously like Clint Eastwood, are stood at the back of the room. He tilted his head to the side disbelievingly. Was he hallucinating?

Tony set Peter down onto a bench. He knocked on the head of a cowboy, and a resounding metallic echo answered.”Human-like automatons, one of my more recent works.” He flicked on some switch behind the robots and they all came to life.

Immediately, all the people—no, automatons—crowded around him, examining his leg.

“Pretty neat, huh?” Tony observed them proudly. Peter, on the other hand, was a little less thrilled at the prospect of having cowboy robots treat his leg. “Are they tested?”

“Yup. Don’t worry, only one of them has ever malfunctioned.”

Shockingly enough, Peter didn’t exactly feel reassured by that statement. Three of the robots suddenly deactivated themselves, deciding this job wasn’t important enough for them. The last one, Clint Eastwood, wheeled out a trolley of instruments that didn’t look so friendly.

The automaton picked up a large syringe from the tray. In his other hand, he, no—it, held a pair of tweezer-looking things. Peter gulped.

He felt the small prick of the syringe, as the anesthetic entered his bloodstream. He felt his spider senses try to pull him away from the needle, and how it took almost all his strength to stay completely still. And then he felt... like he could sleep for a thousand years.

Suddenly the rough, hard surface of the bench became the softest bed in the world. He could feel himself dozing off, with the bright and blurry lights shining above him... and the sight of Clint Eastwood about to cut his leg open...

Everything faded away as Peter took the best night’s rest he had gotten since the fight with The Vulture.


End file.
